Time Travel
According to the late sage-wizard Teville , one can categorize temporal magic into three parts. Of these, the first is ordinary time magic, such as that superbly mastered by the legendary Brensor Khan. Ordinary time magic can be very powerful, but it does not truly include time travel. Well, by Teville's definition, we are all time-travelers, in the sense that we move forward in time each second, and so he calls it ordinary time travel. But the point is that though it includes the stretching of time, bending even, and premonitions, one cannot travel into the past with the use of ordinary time magic. Next is lesser time travel. Even here, the traveler cannot go back in time by himself, but must use portals. In Teville's description, the Middle Plane is akin to an enormous pancake. But each moment, the pancake is replaced by a new one on top of the previous. And in order to hold this stack of pancakes together, it is stitched along the edges. And through these stitches in time, one can travel from one moment to another. But the stitches are slanted, and one also travels in space. Which means that the would-be time traveler must have access to other means of travel, such as astral spells. Furthermore, the traveler must be able to hibernate, for the portals are open for short periods of time, probably less than a week. As an example, if you live in the year 1116, and you wish to travel back in time to the year 1090, you would have to, say, sleep magically until the year 1125, when a portal opens back to 1100 in place A. From place A, you would have to find your way to place B, and hibernate there until 1105, when a portal opens back to 1085 at place C. Now from place C, you have to make it home, and then you must sleep for 5 years. It should be obvious that this kind of time travel is very taxing, especially if one wishes to move across long stretches of time. And, even if technically able to perform this kind of travel, one must know the locations of the portals in question. Here Teville suggests that some persons are known to possess a gift, that is, they can 'see' glimpses of the future, even make others see it. Now, according to his own testimony, Teville never actually crossed any portals himself, so this part is pure speculation. Yet in other matters he claims to have his knowledge directly from Selene. Furthermore, he states that Selene guards the past, and if a traveler tries to change it, Selene will put that traveler into involuntary hibernation, and he will not wake up until he reaches the time when he began his travels. Among the lesser temporal magic, Teville groups the magic that can transport small non-living objects back in time. Here it seems that the object cannot go further back in time than the point when it was created, so one cannot write a letter of warning to oneself. Critics have argued that there could be any number of ways to bypass this rule if one wanted to send messages back in time. But Teville can be somewhat vague at times, and perhaps it is only meant as an illustration. If so, it could simply be that Selene herself ensures that the laws of causality are not broken. Last comes greater, or true time travel. Here one enters what Teville calls the River of Time. This may be done in one of three ways. The easiest way is to let your spirit swim in it. This can be done by a simple ritual. The advantage is that the spirit does not feel the current of the river, and thus can swim both up and down in time with ease. The drawback is that it is almost certainly fatal unless you are one of Selene's favorites, for the spirit cannot find its way home by itself, and the goddess must guide its path. And even if you are such a favorite, what you experience may very well seem like nonsense when you have left the river. The second way – still according to Teville – is to enter the river where it flows through the Spirit Plane. If you have a presence on the Middle Plane, you will feel the current, but it can be overcome. By this means it should be possible to swim back in time and - in principle - change the past. However, the river is heavily guarded – at all times, so to speak. Now the third means is the use of a magical ore Teville calls chronium, for lack of a better word. With the use of chronium, Teville speculates, one can enter and leave the river of time directly from the Middle Plane. Teville does not supply any details on how this may be accomplished, especially where one might find deposits of this mystical metal.